Brew Works in competition with city to buy Queen City land

Brew Works competing with Allentown for Vultee hangar parcel.

The Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority Board has reported they recieved… (JENNA MASON, THE MORNING…)

June 25, 2014|By Andrew Brown, Of The Morning Call

Allentown is facing competition from the Brew Works for the Vultee hangar property at Queen City Airport.

The Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority on Tuesday said four parties other than the city are interested in buying the 8-acre parcel in south Allentown, which is now used by the city's streets department.

Airport board members wouldn't release the names of the other interested developers, saying the information would have to be accessed through a Right-to-Know request.

But Jeff Fegley, who owns Brew Works in Allentown and Bethlehem, identified himself as one of the parties during the board meeting. He said the site would be a good place to build a brewing facility.

A real estate agent with New Pennsylvania Realty, who also was at the meeting, said he was representing Industrial Developments International, an Atlanta developer that previously offered $16.2 million to turn Queen City into industrial and commercial businesses while leaving the rest for small-plane pilots.

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and Fegley have gone head to head over the leasing of the city's water and sewer systems, a proposed waste-to-energy plant and the city's decision to rebid the Brew Works' lease for the restaurant at the Allentown Municipal Golf Course.

Pawlowski, an airport authority member, said he wasn't sure the other offers were serious. He said the site is zoned institutional-governmental, making it difficult to develop without a rezoning.

The mayor also said he thought his proposal was good for both sides, but said he would find another location for the streets department if the authority wanted to go with another buyer.

Currently, the city uses the aging hangar and the surrounding 8 acres to store road salt and nearly 100 city dump trucks, plows and other vehicles. A city-owned streets building is nearby.

The authority asked for letters of interest after the city declined to pay lease fees that increased to $125,000 this year and instead offered to buy it. The city has leased the parcel since it sold Queen City to the airport authority in 2000. The authority also runs Lehigh Valley International Airport and Braden Airpark, a small-plane airfield in Forks Township.

At first, Pawlowski offered to pay $750,000 for the Vultee property. He has since upped the offer to $1 million.

Any money gained from development of Queen City Airport would be welcomed by the cash-strapped authority, as it continues to pay off a $26 million court judgment for taking a developer's property in the mid-1990s.

Fegley said he did not indicate how much he would be willing to pay in his letter to the board, and that he hasn't drafted any development plans.

He has been searching for an additional location for two years. He said his Allentown site is about to reach its brewing capacity, and the Queen City property would be a good place for a new manufacturing facility.

Fegley said his future development proposal could also include a retail segment, where customers could drink and dine while looking out over the 200-acre airfield, but said nothing has been planned yet.

"We would be manufacturing first, and retail that complements the airport second," Fegley said.

Perry Long, a real estate agent with New Pennsylvania Realty, said Industrial Developments International, which is proposing a more than 800,000-square-foot warehouse in Lower Nazareth Township, wants to develop more than the Vultee parcel.

"We submitted a full-blown letter of intent, with a plan to replace all of the hangars," Long said.

He said the runway would be left intact for the 70 pilots who use the airport.

"I feel it's a win-win," Long said.

He would not say how much his client had offered.

But the last time IDI expressed interested, the Federal Aviation Administration informed the airport authority that the land would be subject to an environmental review that could take five to 10 years.

Mike Rosenfeld, chairman of the Lehigh Valley General Aviation Association, a pilots group, said his only demand is that the runways stay open to air traffic.

"I have no dog in this fight," Rosenfeld said.

The Queen City land was once home to a Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. plant that built Seawolf torpedo bombers during World War II. Queen City has been operated as a small-plane airfield for decades.